Book Review: Crystal Palace FC 1990 – 2011: More Biased Commentary by Chris Winter
Chris Winter is a Crystal Palace fan who has watched his beloved team since 1969 and which have given rise to two books. The first Crystal Palace FC 1969 – 1990: A Biased Commentary and the second, Crystal Palace FC 1990 – 2011: More Biased Commentary (which is reviewed here). After a foreword by ‘celebrity’ Palace fan Jo Brand, Winter explains in the introduction that he has spent some of his years at Selhurst Park providing match day commentaries “…to patients in Mayday Hospital, and to blind and partially-sighted fans at the ground and there is no shame in admitting that my description of the action has always been utterly biased, hence the title and tone of the book…”
For me as a reader there is nothing wrong with that, as you then know exactly what you are getting, or as a well known slogan states, “…it does what it says on the tin…” In terms of the basic outline of the book, Winter provides a season by season summary of The Eagles from 1990/91, when Palace were in the ‘old’ First Division, through to 2010/11 in the Championship. This isn’t a game by game account of each season, and instead the focus is on key games or incidents, with the focal point being the players, whether they made a single appearance or were Palace regulars. There are no glossy colour pictures in the book, but the hand drawn sketches of the players by the author himself is a nice touch.
Not being a Palace fan didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book. Indeed I have to admit to learning a few things along the way about the club from South East London. For instance, did you know that Ashley Cole had a loan spell at Selhurst Park from Arsenal during the 1999/2000 season? What also came across is that The Eagles have had more than fair share of bad luck. A couple of instances stood out for me. The first relates to the 1990/91 season when Palace finished third in the ‘old’ First Division. Arsenal had won the title and Liverpool were second. The team from Anfield were still banned from European competition and so Palace were due to take the spot in the UEFA Cup. However, after ‘negotiations’ between the FA and UEFA, Liverpool had their ban revised and so took the European place. The second incident is from the 1994/95 Premier League season. This would see the league restructured from 22 to 20 clubs through the relegation of four rather than three sides and the promotion of just two from the division below. And the team that suffered the drop finishing fourth from bottom? Of course, The Eagles.
The last season detailed is 2010/11, which was a significant one as the new owners CPFC2010 took control of the club and towards the end saw Dougie Freedman become manager. This could be seen as the starting point of a renaissance, which although saw Freedman move to Bolton this season, has as I write, lead to Palace sitting in second place under Ian Holloway and the dream of a return to the Premier League very much alive.
In closing the book, Winter then reviews position by position, his best eleven from the 1990 – 2011 period and finishes with a postscript which the reveals his all-time fantasy team (covering both books from 1969 – 2011). My one slight criticism is that Winter discloses his best eleven from the 1990 – 2011 period in the introduction to the book, so when reading the positional review at the close of this edition, the suspense of who is in the line-up is already lost. However, this is a very minor point.
Overall, this is a good addition to the bookshelves for any Palace fan, in providing a very readable summary of the seasons since 1990/91 and will spark memories for those old enough to remember and provide a background to years gone-by for younger fans. Football is about opinions; this book will certainly stimulate that discussion and debate amongst its readers.
As football fans we love our club with a passion. We also have by tradition, rivals; the team we love to hate, the one that we love to see struggle, the one that by beating brings boundless joy and local bragging rights. But what would you do if you found yourself in charge of the enemy, as Chairman of your bitterest rivals?
The illustrated hardback edition of this book was published by Mainstream Publishing in November 2004, with an eBook distributed by Wholepoint Publications in August 2011. It is the latter version of this work by Paolo Hewitt and Mark Baxter that was read for the purposes of this review. This detailing of the date and format may not seem the normal way to start a review, but in one of those strange twists of fate it became relevant when reading the eBook.
This book is an absorbing mix of fact and fiction that details the factual life of Leeds United and the fictional life of a young Leeds fan throughout the Don Revie era. The fictional life of Jimmy O’Rourke is set amid real events both at the club and in the city of Leeds which adds context to the footballing narrative of Don Revie’s transformational time as manager of the club from 1961 to his departure to take up the England manager’s post in 1974.
Let’s start by getting a few things out of the way. Firstly, this book is an example of where you have to be brutally honest and say that the proof-reading has been poor and therefore resulted in numerous spelling and grammatical errors slipping through the net into the final published edition. Secondly, the language leaves nothing to the imagination. Having played, watched and written about football over the years, I’m used to the ‘industrial’ nature of it and understand that it is all part of the game, but potential readers should be aware. Lastly, I appreciate that part of the publishing business is to ‘talk-up’ your book, but it really puts enormous pressure on the publisher (The Posh Book Company, in this case) to deliver, when phrases such as, “…this is a remarkable insight…” and describing the book as delivering, “…above all the TRUTH…” are used in their recounting of their first foray into the publishing world.
“My name’s James Scoltock, I’m a football fan and so very happily one dimensional” declares the author in his review of a dramatic 12 months for his club, Norwich City.
When I was growing up, the football book market was pretty much restricted to lazy and often ‘ghosted’ biographies, where ‘the boys done good’ mentality was about as incisive as it got. Thankfully, as the early 1990’s emerged this changed, with books such as “Fever Pitch” by Nick Hornby paving the way for a better expression of the fan experience and the beautiful game in a wider context. Following in this vein Anthony Clavane wrote the Award winning “Promised Land: A Northern Love Story”, which tells the tale of the rise and fall of Leeds United, intertwined with that of the City of Leeds and of the Jewish community.
“This is a time of unprecedented uncertainty and disaffection in Scottish football, from the top of the game to the bottom…The extreme financial challenges facing Rangers and other SPL clubs, poor performances by Scottish clubs in Europe and the failure of the national team to reach the finals of a major competition since 1998, all add to a generally held feeling fuelled by an increasingly restive media, that the game has sunk to its lowest level in living memory.” This statement was made by outgoing Dundee FC chairman Bob Brannan in an open letter to the fans of the club in June 2010 and appears in the book titled “It’s All About The Memories” by Jacqui Robertson and Kenny Ross. This was a highly prophetic statement as in September 2010, Dundee FC entered administration and in the summer of 2012, Rangers were liquidated. To add a further twist to the tale, it was Dundee FC who took Rangers place in the Scottish Premier League this season after finishing runners up in the First Division in 2011/12.
What we come to understand today as the game of football, played and watched by millions across the world, began its real development in England during the Victorian era. This collection of writing edited by Paul Brown is drawn from library archives from such long-lost newspapers and periodicals as, Every Boy’s Magazine, The Dart and Chums, from 1863 through to 1900. It covers reports of games (including England v Scotland, 1872), articles from leading figures (such as, C.W.Alcock) and broaches topics such as “Association Football in Scotland”
This is the second book in the “Alfie Jones” series (